Picks and Pans Review: Rock On

As a kid, Kennedy dressed for Halloween as Gene Simmons. So when Atlantic Records hired him as director of creative development in 2002, he went in as a rock geek—but he emerged after a mass firing with damning tales of “mogul monsters.” In this memoir, he skewers coworkers like the Little Loud Man from New Media, spills secrets of “ironic image reinvention” (imagine a heavy metal Jewel) and invites us to a spliff-fueled commercial shoot with rapper Fat Joe. (“Oh my God,” says Kennedy, “they’re laughing at the deli trays.”) Fast-moving and darkly funny, Rock On should be a chart-topper.